Locations where a railroad track crosses a road, highway or other vehicular avenue are referred to as grade crossings. Grade crossings are typically outfitted with right of way equipment to notify motorists of the grade crossing and/or when a train is approaching the crossing. Typical right of way equipment may include crossing gates and wayside crossing signal lights.
Many years ago, incandescent bulbs powered by DC voltage were the standard for such wayside crossing signal lights. After this, AC lighting of such crossing signal lights became standard, before a change back to DC lighting occurred. This change back to DC lighting was spurred by the use of electronic controllers. In the early 2000s, the lamp itself was improved by the introduction of the light emitting diode (“LED”). These LEDs typically run on 12VDC and include an integrated regulation feature that holds the lamp voltages steady with various input voltages applied.
Installation of known LED signal lights and associated control equipment has proven costly. In particular, such systems require many runs of cabling between each signal light and a wayside control house that contains the control electronics for controlling operation of the signal lights. This cabling is expensive in and of itself, and is costly and laborious to bury beneath the ground adjacent to the roadway. In addition, existing control systems are relatively complex and the control of signal lamps is concentrated to one device making the signaling system susceptible to common mode failure.
What is needed, therefore, is a signaling system and method that differ from existing systems.